beauty reviews & other musings

May 22, 2016September 6, 2016

Birchbox UK: May 2016

I’ve been subscribed to Birchbox (the UK edition) for about six months now, since I had the idea that a monthly beauty box would curb my spending on makeup (ha!). Turns out this didn’t work, although I have discovered loads of new brands and products that I probably would never have tried before, and May 2016 is no exception.
The theme for this month’s box is “For the Dreamers“, and the box has a cool multicoloured kinda-geometric design, with a silver top. This top layer scratches away, so you can get creative and scratch your own design into the box – pretty cool, and different to previous boxes.

Every box was guaranteed to come with a Spectrum Collections Unicorn Tears Wonder Sponge, with a colour choice of either pink or lavender (I chose lavender of course). This is a Beauty Blender-esque makeup sponge without the price tag – this one retails for £4.99.
In my box I also received a miniature sample of Stainiac from TheBalm, in the shade Beauty Queen. This is a reddish-pink tint for both the lips and cheeks, and left a lovely subtle colour on my lips. The third product was a travel-size Caudalie Vinosource Moisturizing Sorbet, a really nice and effective moisturiser (although the full-size is fairly pricey). Another travel size is the Philip Kingsley PK Prep Polishing Balm for hair. I’m not usually fussed about hair products so I might give this one a miss (and let one of my sisters use it). From Rituals, I received a tube of The Ritual Of Dao Mindful Body Scrub. I loved the foaming shower gel from Rituals in a similar scent so I was really excited about this and it does smell DIVINE, with a lovely softening effect. Finally, there was a small sachet of coconut oil from Vita Coco. After all the hype I still haven’t tried coconut oil for anything – beauty or cooking. You don’t get a lot in this sample but I’ll try to put it to use, although I don’t have a clue what to do with it.

That concludes the contents of my May 2016 Birchbox. I’m going to give it another few months before I consider cancelling or changing to another box, but my experience so far has been mostly awesome (and you get a lot of points to spend in their online shop when you review your samples). The standard Birchbox UK subscription is £10 + £2.95 for shipping per month – bundles are available.